4 - Fumbling in the Dark

Summary

Interveners used several analogies when they reflected on the process of trying to understand what was going on in their areas of deployment. To one diplomat, it was “like a puzzle.” A United Nations (UN) official likened the process to that of “four blind men feeling an elephant.” While the man touching the elephant’s leg claims that they have arrived at a tree, the man touching the trunk retorts instead that it is a snake. Meanwhile, the man touching the belly argues that they have found a big balloon, and the one touching the ear maintains that it is in fact a giant palm leaf. To that official, this was exactly the problem that plagued interveners deployed in Congo: “There are lots of perspectives that we can take on what Congo is and what its problems are.” But, as he crucially added, foreign peacebuilders rarely considered the perspectives of the Congolese – for reasons analyzed in the previous chapters.

After working for many years in Peaceland, the analogy that came to my mind was the experience of standing in the dark with only a blinking flashlight. The fleeting illumination reveals one fragmentary image after another. The pictures are limited to the immediate surroundings, so the observer can make little sense of what lies beyond the circle of light. The scene as a whole is disjointed. At any moment, a change in one shadow can occur undetected while the flashlight is pointed somewhere else. Ultimately, this experience provides sparse and fragmented information, which cannot help one develop a clear image of the overall conditions.